TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
501 
sence. The Atwenwuns then, with much cere¬ 
mony, handed the dispatch to me, and request¬ 
ed me to open it, which was done. It contained 
a joint letter from Mr. Hunter and Mr. Paton, 
the commissioners in Aracan, very cautiously 
worded; one from their assistant, Captain Phil¬ 
lips, equally so ; a confidential letter from Mr. 
Secretary Swinton, and duplicates of the Go¬ 
vernment dispatches received from Rangoon. 
I handed the letters of the commissioners and 
their assistant, to Dr. Price, the interpreter of 
the Atwenwuns, and requested them to make 
any use they pleased of them. The duplicates, 
as soon as X ascertained them to be such, I tore 
up in their presence, to convince them that they 
contained nothing of importance. The Atwen¬ 
wuns began, without scruple or delicacy, to take 
down, in Burman, the substance of the letters 
which were handed to them. While I was ab¬ 
sent for a moment, bringing the Rangoon dis¬ 
patches, I left Mr. Swinton’s confidential letter 
on the table. This the Atwenwuns would have 
laid hold of, had they not been prevented. They 
observed to Mr. Judson, 46 Why should not the 
contents of this also be made known to us, as 
well as the rest.” When I returned, I gave 
Mr. Swinton’s letter for perusal to Dr. Price, 
and caused to be transcribed from it the follow- 
